Posted
by
Soulskillon Saturday June 11, 2011 @08:15AM
from the i'm-holding-out-for-the-narco-space-shuttle dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Not content with building their own submarines, using bazookas, rocket-propelled grenades or land mines, drug cartels are now building armored assault vehicles, complete with gun turrets, inch-thick armor plates, firing ports and bulletproof glass. The monsters look like a cross between a handmade assault vehicle used by a Somali warlord and something out of a post-apocalyptic Mad Max movie, and have already appeared in several confrontations with Mexican authorities. A look inside a captured 'monster' truck (YouTube video) reveals that in addition to swiveling turrets to shoot in any direction, they have hatches and peepholes for snipers, their spacious interiors can fit as many as 20 armed men, and they are coated with polyurethane for insulation and to reduce noise. Still Patrick Corcoran writes that the armored vehicles are not a game changer. 'While the "narco-tanks," as the vehicles are often called, make for great blog fodder and provide entertaining videos, seeing their rise as a significant escalation in Mexico's drug war would be wrongheaded,' writes Corcoran. 'In the end, the "tanks" are a sexy narrative, but these mistaken notions about the criminals' "military might" not only inflate the power of Mexico's groups far beyond any reasonable assessment, they also obscure the problem, and its potential solutions.'"

When property is seized from illegal activity, not all of it always gets reports as impounded. The person it's being seized from won't complain, as it reduces the number of charges or the severity of them.

For example, if you're caught with $1,000,000 cash, and 20 kilos of cocaine, but the arrest report only shows $1,000 cash and 1 kilo of cocaine. Only an absolute idiot would demand that the correct amounts are listed.

What failure? Private prisons funnel tons of dollars straight from the tax payers to the multinational cartels, a single drug bust can ensure you have a large underclass ready for exploitation for everything from booze and smokes to lotto tickets and check cashing places, it helps to keep the population under control while giving a nice excuse to make the police more and more like a military operating on home soil, while also helping to get rid of those pesky little things like the fourth amendment...oh...were you actually thinking it was about stopping drugs? Silly peasant it is about profits for the megacorps, just like everything else.

After all if it was about "The People" then pot would be legal, we wouldn't be fighting three wars while funneling ever more money to Wall Street and the MIC, nobody would touch Medicaid and Medicare, the military would be less than half the size and not building new aircraft carriers and superweapons like we had a war planned with the Ruskies for next Tuesday, but where is the room for massive profits and corruption in that? That is why your "vote" is a choice between "Rich corporate ass kisser in a blue suit" or "Rich corporate ass kisser in a slightly darker blue suit". Any choice that might actually listen to the people would cut into profits! Mustn't have that now, can we?

BTW how's that "Hope and Change" thing working out? Turned out to be nothing but Dubya dipped in chocolate huh? I'm afraid the late Bill Hicks [youtube.com] nailed it more than 20 years ago. How sad is it the man has been gone for two decades and if anything his words are even more true now?

Barack Obama has made it American policy to not go after medical marijuana dispenserise though George W Bush (and to be fair Clinton) did attach these legal (at a state level) and illegal (at a fed level) dispenseries.

I wonder what Mitt Romney would do about medical marijuana. I wonder if he would tolerate it as much as gay marriage.

I remember that universal healthcare that W passed. And the financial industry regulation.

Also, I remember how George W Bush, didn't go out of his way to punch the environment i

Barack Obama has made it American policy to not go after medical marijuana dispenserise though George W Bush (and to be fair Clinton) did attach these legal (at a state level) and illegal (at a fed level) dispenseries.

That's bullshit. The Feds are still raiding dispensaries.

Here are three articles on recent raids that come up when I type in "dispensary raid" into Google News:

BTW how's that "Hope and Change" thing working out? Turned out to be nothing but Dubya dipped in chocolate huh? I'm afraid the late Bill Hicks [youtube.com] nailed it more than 20 years ago. How sad is it the man has been gone for two decades and if anything his words are even more true now?

Bill Hicks:-

I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin' mouth.

Your denial is beneath you, and thanks to the use of hallucinogenic drugs, I see through you.

"This is your brain." I've seen a lot of weird shit on drugs. I have never ever ever ever EVER looked at a fucking egg and thought it was a brain.

If you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, then go home and burn all your records, all your tapes, and all your CDs because every one of those artists who have made brilliant music and enhanced your lives? RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrEAL fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high they let Ringo sing a few songs.

I have never seen two people on pot get in a fight because it is fucking IMPOSSIBLE. "Hey, buddy!" "Hey, what?" "Ummmmmmm...." End of argument.

Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit... unnatural? You know what I mean? It's nature. How do you make nature against the fucking law?

I believe that God left certain drugs growing naturally upon our planet to help speed up and facilitate our evolution. OK, not the most popular idea ever expressed. Either that or you're all real high and agreeing with me in the only way you can right now. (Starts blinking)

They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.

No, I don't do drugs anymore, either. But I'll tell you something about drugs. I used to do drugs, but I'll tell you something honestly about drugs, honestly, and I know it's not a very popular idea, you don't hear it very often anymore, but it is the truth: I had a great time doing drugs. Sorry. Never murdered anyone, never robbed anyone, never raped anyone, never beat anyone, never lost a job, a car, a house, a wife or kids, laughed my ass off, and went about my day.

Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It's a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it -- and believe me, I was raised Southern Baptist -- is to take massive amounts of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, "Show me."

That's an act, that's a frying pan, that's a stove, you're an alcoholic! Dude, I'm tripping right now, and I still see that that's a fucking egg, alright? I see the UFO's around it, but that's a goddamn egg in the middle. There's a hobbit eating it, but goddammit that hobbit's eating a fucking egg! He's on a unicorn. But, no, th-th-th-that's a fucking egg. How dare you have a wino tell me not to do drugs!

The worst kind of non-smokers are the ones that come up to you and cough. That's pretty fucking cruel isn't it? Do you go up to cripples and dance too?

A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It's like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant.

Americans joke about French demonstrators because they are typically just a bunch of angry youths rioting. In contrast, look at the "Arab Spring" demonstrations. For the most part, they were peaceful and not burning down cars and shops.

They do, obviously, because its close to Mexico and has an open drugs market. But I think that is a moot point.

Now before I explain why, bear in mind I'm a Mexican living in Monterrey. Just yesterday I was caught in traffic because a couple of severed heads were displayed on a bridge I go through every single day. People are curious that way and drive slowly so they can see...

If you could magically stop US->Mexico weapon trafficking, they'd bring them in from all over central america where lots of (US led, incited or provoked) wars have been fought, leaving behind healthy weapons markets. Colombia had a worse problem than us in Mexico and their narcs didn't bring in the guns from the US (or obviously they did, but not as easyly as they can do it in Mexico), and they took half the country for themselves (Colombia is still, to this day, split in two).

Its not about firepower, police, law or drugs. Its about money. This mafias are the same as the italian, russian, american or japaneese mafias, and same as those, they get their money from certain trades more than others. In this case, beingthis close to the US means: 1) Drugs and 2) Slaves and Organs (you call this "illegal inmigration" and "black market" organ "donors"). Their bussiness is the border. They are smugglers.

Of the two, the first gives much more money, att least 20 billion dollars a year (at the very, very least, 10 billion, at the highest count, 60-70 billion). Mexico's oil industry, the third largest state-owned in the world, gives 40 billion at its best. And most of the state money comes from that, not taxes.

So in the end, its about how governments spend their resouces to face this threat: ours focus on drug trafficking to the north. Yes, most of our effort here is tries to make sure that your coke is more expensive. Imagine that. Actually, the President of Mexico in the 2007, as proof that this shit is working, cited that the price of coke in new york went up due to this genius war of his.

Now this was not invented by mexicans. We are catholics but not puritans. We certaintly have never, ever had a prohibition party like you guys did in the XIX century and we do not make international drug policy: that one is imposed by the U S of A. We did not prohibit marihuana until you guys came a knocking demanding we did.

You guys need to change that shit because we are killing people here to make the mafia stronger because this is the result of a policy you impose on other countries. If other countries do not comply with your war-on-drugs discourse, your senate puts them in a list where they face strong trade barriers. are not ellegible for aid, and are strong armed by US government lobbies that do their best, which is a lot, to complicate those countries access to international money lending programmes such as those by the IMF and the WB.

Change that shit man. We down here do not deserve to die, live with fucking murderers, give them a fuckload of money (through prohibition), because you guys cant officially state that your people like to get high, You hold this policy of purity that aspires to a "clean" america, while on the other hand you are the country with the highest per capita consumption of illegal drugs in the world.

Its stupid. Your country is killing mine over a really stupid view of the world. I want drugs to be legal in ALL OF OCCIDENT.

Jesus did not have the last dinner with a mountain dew and did not turn water into coca cola. He very well damned had a glass of wine and in that particular wedding he brought more booze for everyone to party the fuck on. I sure do hope you guys get that through your thick heads before the cartels find out that they have to force american authorities on their soil to fuck off so they can continue doing bussiness.

Thank you Alex for contributing your perspective. Too many on the northern side of the border here forget that US policy decisions affect far more than just the US -- and that a lot of the international impact is negative. Folks up here would not put up with your situation, and if they were more acutely aware of your situation, they might just get off their duffs and demand that something change for the better.

Jesus did not have the last dinner with a mountain dew and did not turn water into coca cola. He very well damned had a glass of wine and in that particular wedding he brought more booze for everyone to party the fuck on. I sure do hope you guys get that through your thick heads before the cartels find out that they have to force american authorities on their soil to fuck off so they can continue doing bussiness.

That just about says it all. I have quite a few Mexican friends up here who confide in me quite a bit about their fears for their country, families and friends about this bullshit all the time. I met a businessman recently over a poker game and he was really scared. He had been threatened quite a bit and had already moved his family to some out of the way backwater place in the US. His plan is to sell everything he has in Mexico and open up some new businesses in the US. That part is easy. As I am told, as long you are a rich, whiter looking Mexican you can get special treatment and those pesky things like visas and green cards are for the really brown and poor people.

It is all about money. We have more than enough resources to make free healthcare for everyone on US soil, regardless if you are an American citizen. We are so goddamn rich in resources that we could literally put a person into a hospital and give them all the care in the world... if they could just make it to America. There are doctors here that care so much... they go on missions to other countries to perform surgeries to make people's lives better.

The reason why America is so damn poor right now and literally falling apart is the inefficiencies and greed. Anybody really think we are that different from Saudi Arabia? Pleaseeee....

You take all the money you make each month (US citizens), which is tied to your production (resources), and you would be surprised about the percentage of it that ends up in the hands of just a few thousand people. The rest ends up in share holder's hands... and those people are just basically compulsive gamblers at best.

We are all just slaves in a Feudal society. It is wrapped up in a different skin, we have the illusions of Freedom, but the truth is far different than the carefully constructed reality to keep us satiated. Basically, the standard of living is on average so much higher than the Feudalistic societies hundreds of years ago that we don't complain as much.

Seriously. As long as we get to eat Fast Food, smoke a blunt (at greatly inflated prices) and fuck each other high on something, we tend to not complain as much, or seriously get ambitious about changing our world. We are happy little slaves. It ain't a blunt, it is government approved pharma happy pills. They love you then.

Those that really are serious about change ?:)

They are marginalized and labeled as crackpots..... or you sport a team jersey. Just one big fight about ideals, that don't really matter, to distract all of those political people into yelling at each other and blaming the other sides for our problems. If just those damn Republicans would all die at the same time we would be better of right?

It's sick. Really sick.

Your country Mexico should be fucking grateful. Be glad you are not Afghanistan (Oil, Gas, and rich rare mineral resources), or Pakistan and Iraq. Or for that matter.... any country in Africa. The US of A exploits the crap out of the world to be the fat Romans that we are.

Funny thing is..... hardly anybody in America is even aware of any of this at any level. They have no idea the amount of suffering involved in their purchases from Walmart or the drug dealer on the street. It's kind of hard to be really angry at them. I mean if your life was relatively stable and you had very little to worry about, meaning, serious stuff like being kidnapped, killed, and having your head placed on a pike, you would probably slip into blissful ignorance as well.

Very well put, only someone outside U.S. can judge the situation the way you did and pretty much what the average citizen of producer countries think.

Anyway, I'm from Colombia and may say that were not actually "split in two" as you said. We went trough a very interesting phase where originally the drug was controlled by cartels (Medellin Cartel and Cali cartel, Pablo Escobar era) Guerrilla at that time didn't have participation in the drug trade. Eventually Cartel bosses got killed and every mid rank from

Yes, we know. Generally when you can categorize some sort of political idea as "completely retarded" (i.e. drug prohibition), I would wager that the vast majority of Slashdotters are against it. You're preaching to the choir.

The problem isn't us. (Yes, I know that's a thing a lot of Americans say oh so unironically.) I'm talking about us here. As stupid as some of us here can be, I think we're more likely to write our congress critter, protest, come up with some new and groundbreaking idea, etc. We're all a

the person who wrote the article apparently doesnt know shit about military technology and history.

an armored personnel carrier is an armored personnel carrier. the fact that these are produced, and used means that the party using them has the means to produce them and use them. this shows an escalation of the situation.

Except that this is not an APC. It's a truck with shit bolted and welded on, not much more than a glorified technical [wikipedia.org]. It's just like Marvin Heemeyer's armored bulldozer [wikipedia.org], only constructed not for defense, but offense, and are only proof against small arms, as the officer said, not heavy weapons or anti-materiel/anti-tank rifles.

The fact that the drug lords are deploying these means they're desperate: smuggling operations fail, so the only way for them to make money is to try and bust through the border. It's certainly an escalation, but not a very dangerous one if handled correctly.These things, judging by the looks of them, are not cheap to make, despite being improvised. If the military makes one big push now, ramps up Predator patrols, deploys Barret M82-s/XM109-s (if they're completed, the 25mm HE round should certainly prove adequate to defeat the weaker portions of the armor while remaining man-portable) and other heavy weapons, possibly even tank patrols along the border and MLRS units stationed at regular intervals, they might bankrupt the drug lords, or at least convince them that trying to assault the US border will keep costing more than it makes for them if they keep losing technicals at the same rate.However, if they don't man up and replace jeep patrols with something that packs more punch, these things are going d what they were made to do, and will befeat the border guards, returning the revenue to the drug cartels.

Looking at the video again, they are. I must have misheard something with the presenter's accent, and surmised they were assaulting the border, not each other.Although I don't find it implausible for them to try and break through with one or two to deliver...

That's... that's assuming there's actually something there for them to break through. That's assuming there's something at the border they can't cross.

That's not how things are, you can move anything you want from Mexico to America or the other way around. Hell, heard the shit going on in Arizona? Bunch of border patrol agents down there throwing around claims that they were instructed to just wave flashlights at border-crossers. Just try and scare them away. That's all, no more, wave a light at them

it IS an apc. doesnt matter how you name it, doesnt matter what you compare it with. it is an armored vehicle that stands firearms, carries heavy weaponry. the drug cartels can field it.

and as you say - it stands against small arms - not anti tank rifles or heavier weapons - the point is, it DOES stand against the majority of weapons on the scene.

most of combat in world war ii was fought with similar, even weaker vehicles.

you cant put predator patrols over a city and start shooting suspicious vehicles with anti tank ammunition. that is the real deal here. you are joking when you say MLRS. what are you going to use MLRS against ? neighborhoods ?

this is city warfare. you are not fighting in open desert. predators, mlrs are out of question unless you want to destroy entire neighborhoods.

Yes, yes, someone already pointed this out, I misunderstood the video commentary, and thought they were being used to breach the US border to deliver drugs. In which case, my arguments stand.As it is, intervening in Mexico is not the US military's job, unless Mexico specifically requests help.

As for the MLRS, do you know what soldiers call it when it packs guided missiles? "The 70-km Sniper Rifle". Those missiles are accurate enough to take out one building and leave the rest undamaged on the block, I think

I'm amazed how little are you guys worried for the lives of us mexicans. We want to deal with the bad guys far more than you, but we don't want our cities leveled by the USAF, please keep your armed forces in your side of the border, thank you.

MLRS??? Uh, just a bit overkill - this is a couple of drug runners with armored trucks, not a Warsaw Pact invasion...

Javelins or similar manportable weapons are probably the most economical solution, assuming a 50 cal doesn't just take it out. If the drug runners build a thousand of these then maybe we'll need to lean on the Mexicans to control their side of the border or just annex a few hundred miles and turn it into a no-man's land - a much more economical prospect than turning the entire Mexican borde

Your tinfoil hat must be cutting off circulation to your head. The government wasn't smuggling guns for the cartels, they were engaged in a sting. A poorly conceived of and executed sting, but a sting no less. It's just plain dishonest to suggest that the US is funding and arming them.

Yes, they are making most of their money here and they are using that money to pay people to buy them weapons, but you make it sound like there's some sort of conspiracy going on. Whereas what's really going on is typical of organized crime and requires no additional paranoia to explain.

>Which has precisely what to do with the accusation that the US is arming and funding the narcomafia?

BECAUSE WE HAVE DONE IT BEFORE. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IRAN-CONTRA DID!

Keerrrist!

>This time

This is the time to assume the Government is guilty before proven innocent. We've pulled dirty shit like this before multiple times in the past when it "suited us" for various values of "suiting" and various values of "morality."

You say desperate, but I'd argue that they have actually demonstrated a high level of creativity. It's not like the traditional routes of drug smuggling are going to stop - the US market is just as well supplied now as it has always been. The submarines, the armoured vehicles etc., are just attempts at finding a better smuggling method.

When alcohol was prohibited, the US saw all kinds of organization and arming of people in the alcohol trade. It got so bad that it was decided that alcohol should no longer be prohibited. Now it is just tightly controlled.

The war on drugs is a different story though isn't it. I guess the main reason why might be that all this stuff isn't quite so visible to the public.

A large part of it is the continued turf war as the Mexican government makes progress in various areas. The Mexican government hasn't been able to make enough head way to keep it that way, but they have managed to do well enough that the gangs are fighting amongst themselves as they lose, usually temporarily, some portion of their turf.

The James bond gear is primarily for use against each other though.

This is similar to what Columbia went through when they were cleaning themselves up after years of being ow

Not much worse than alcohol IMHO. Also once legal you can provide information and warning about it, medial surveillance, counseling, all paid by the users. Basically acknowledging that drugs are part of human nature and actually deal with it. What's wrong with realism?

Yes, legalize cocaine. Legalize it, regulate it, and tax it, just like coffee, alcohol and tobacco are currently regulated. Do you think that throwing the word "cocaine" around is going to scare us? Cocaine used to be legal in this country, until a bunch of southern cops began to complain about "cocaine niggers" and how "the cocaine nigger sure is hard to kill."

Yes, absolutely. It's not like it wasn't legal once upon a time, and we didn't have drug cartels murdering 10 9/11's worth of innocent people every single fucking year when it was.

Prohibition does not work, let people do what they're going to do anyway. We could tax it and spend the money gained from those taxes on free rehab for those who need it. We'd save untold billions of dollars and, far more important, all those wasted lives.

Crack is cheap. Poor people use it because they can afford it. Crack kills. The war on drugs is an assault on the poor, not that this is a shocker. It's not like the rich politicians who brought us prohibition stopped drinking.

Given that people are going to obtain and use cocaine -- I do not think that this is in question -- would you prefer to see the sale of unregulated, adulterated and untaxed cocaine by murderers, or the sale of regulated, unadulterated, and taxed cocaine by licensed shop owners? Personally, I would take the latter, since that approach has been hugely successful when it comes to alcohol and tobacco.

I would prefer no cocaine on the Main street and no crack on the 114th street.

American government have no problem stomping on rights of citizens because of the "war on terror" (read: against us, Muslims), surely, they would have no problem restricting them in order to suppress the culture of drugs in US.

American government have no problem stomping on rights of citizens because of the "war on terror" (read: against us, Muslims), surely, they would have no problem restricting them in order to suppress the culture of drugs in US.

You must not have been paying attention: our rights have already been stomped on by the war on drugs, right from the very beginning. You do realize that cocaine was first made illegal because congress was told that "cocaine niggers" (black men who used cocaine) became unstoppable monsters with superior aim with a handgun, right? Shortly after the New York Times published the story detailing how "the cocaine nigger sure is hard to kill," souther police forces began increasing the caliber of their standard issue handguns. Marijuana was made illegal under similar circumstances; it helped that industries that competed with the hemp industry put pressure on congress.

You think your rights have not been stomped on? Take a look around. The United States has police forces that can only be described as paramilitary squads. When the local cops are as heavily armed as a small army unit, we are in serious trouble. If you need something more concrete than the abstract, "militant police forces are a problem," consider this:

The only reason you do not perceive your rights being stomped on by the war on drugs is that it has been happening for so long now that you and most other people have generally forgotten that they ever had the rights they lost. Remember the days when the police had to obtain a warrant to search your home? Not anymore:

You used to be able to make large cash transactions in private; now that is automatically reported to the government, as part of an effort to crack down on drug dealers. Even so much as a misdemeanor drug offense now causes a person's right to buy a gun to be denied. Any company that does contracting work for the government is required, by law, to maintain a "drug free workplace." A drug offense can mean the loss of scholarships for students, regardless of their academic merit.

At very least, we need to target these cartels based on their level of violence and threat to government control. Pick the nastiest one with the most weapons and devote all of our resources to destroying it. Then move on to the next one on the list, and so on and so forth.

Yes, this means we'll have to take resources away from some of the lesser cartels, but the point is to reduce violence not drug shipments. It needs to be made clear that being the biggest, baddest, most threatening organization is a dea

At very least, we need to target these cartels based on their level of violence and threat to government control.

Note going to work, there's always going to be another psychopath willing to take up where the last one left off.

Legalize all drugs, today, and tax them and use those taxes to pay for rehab for those who need it. It is literally the only solution. Otherwise, more innocent people are going to die every single day.

Note going to work, there's always going to be another psychopath willing to take up where the last one left off.

On the contrary. Drug running is a business, and right now it's a competitive one. The cartels mostly build their military capabilities because it increases their ability to get product to market. If having big fangs and teeth was a disadvantage --- i.e., it increased their costs or threatened their existence --- then they'd be outcompeted by less violent cartels.

As an example, over the past decade the NYC police have revised their cocaine enforcement to target street dealing, but mostly leave non-violent apartment dealing alone. The result has been a huge drop in violence, since the dealers can make more money by keeping a low profile. This stuff really works.

I'm not sure if prohibition is a good solution. Maybe some good, some bad. But since it's clearly not on the political table right this second we at least need to target the real problem before it gets beyond our control.

I'm not sure if prohibition is a good solution. Maybe some good, some bad. But since it's clearly not on the political table right this second we at least need to target the real problem before it gets beyond our control.

The real problem IS prohibition. Until that's on the table all else is a fucking waste of time, money, effort, and lives, but really, what politician gives a shit as long as they get re-elected, their friends get paid, and their kids don't get killed.

There's a reason why the constitution doesn't include the right to do whatever drug you might want to do.

Funny how over a century passed between the constitutional convention and the beginning of the drug war. I suspect the constitution does not explicitly grant the right to use drugs because the founding fathers could not envision a world in which the US government would try to outlaw the use of hemp/marijuana, coca, or opium, let alone the broad classes of plants and chemicals that are illegal to possess in this country.

This rifle would easily take down a vehicle like this, they are not as invincible as they claim to be. I am sure that they are proof against a Kalashnikov or a.223 caliber rifle, but a good sniper rifle like the Anzio would take it out with one shot. Is this the start of the Mexican border war as depicted in the Robocop movie?

You don't need a 20mm, you can use a.50 cal with HE rounds. One of them well-placed will put some crap like this out of commission. A.50 with HE can take out a REAL APC, let alone this toy crap. One IED rolled under the vehicle would do it, too.

It's certainly harder than having no armor. It does point to things continuing to spiral out of control in Mexico. Of course, that's how our government likes it. To the North you have snow and trees, to the south you have a drug war. It prevents citizens from fleeing overland. Only the rich may depart.

It sounds more like it would make them an easy target. It sticks out like a sore thumb, has paramilitary qualities more likely to result in a shoot-to-kill order, and puts a dozen or more men all enclosed in a small space prone to spalling and shrapnel.

"Authorities in Awe of Drug Runners' Jungle-Built, Kevlar-Coated Supersubs"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_drugsub/all/1 [wired.com]
5.5 tons of cocaine on a American-registered DC-9 http://www.madcowprod.com/07152010.htm [madcowprod.com]
As for the US border, expect to see a huge roll out of face, cell phone data and optical character recognition systems deep into the USA on all public roads.
Your car might make it over, but your face will be recorded. You can change cars, papers, times, but over time a database will try and build some face based watch list for people who make repeated trips.....
Is the driver new to the US, looking stressed, been seen before on back roads.... next "random" Border Patrol interior checkpoint, expect a "random" Border Patrol check - somewhere within 100-miles of the US land and coastal borders is legal.

Of course as soon as this was discovered the Justice Department sprang into action and initiated a RICO takedown of the entire institution and all its executives (in an alternate universe). What they actually did was politely request that the company pay a fine equal to 2% of their profits which was then refunded to them by the Treasury Department via a $54 billion bailout.

It makes sense because laws don't apply to the aristocracy like they apply to us peasants - they're doing God's work [businessinsider.com] after all.

Seriously, we can not win the drug war. All this is doing around the world id funding these kinds of ppl. Taliban and AQ make loads of money from drugs. So do American gangs.
The only real solution is for America to legalize ALL drugs, and then allow NO IMPORTS OR EXPORTS of drugs. In addition, the production and sale of such is also heavily regulated. A whiff of a connection with ANY gang and you can not do anything. Get caught using illegal drugs? Not a problem. The state provides housing for 5 years. Get caught bringing in, or selling drugs? Again, not a problem 20 years.

By making importation of drugs illegal, you spring a closet underground market for doing so. Legalizing all drugs is not the answer either. Some drugs are very, very harmful: even marijuana, when abused has some long-lasting side effects. It would be enough to legalize marijuana because that accounts for close to 56% of the cartel's gross trafficking.

They are ALL harmful. Post is just least harmful.
However, consumption continues even with the neo-cons war on drugs. Basically, this is unwinnable, and it is funding gangs, drug lords, etc. The best way to stop them is to deny them money. THat solve this.
Without supplies, yes, that DOES create an underground market. HOWEVER, when the gov. supplies it cheaper than what illegal drugs can be brought in for, AND the penalty for USING illegal drugs is high, you pretty much destroy the illegal drugs. At the lea

Legalizing all drugs is not the answer either. Some drugs are very, very harmful

Legalizing does not mean inciting. On the very contrary once a drug is legal you can inform people about its effects, discourage its use and provide counseling and medical monitoring to the users, all this using money coming from the very persons who use the drug. In fact legalizing drugs and making them appear as the medical condition they really are mostly make them appear boring and may indeed turn people away from them, or at least from heavy, excessive use.

The Taliban money comes from protection rackets, they hate drugs and alcohol and wiped out the Afgan poppy fields when they were in control. Apparently OBL smoked the occasional joint, but he funded his activities from personal wealth.

As to import/export, no. It is the fact that the west has LARGE demand, and no supplies that lead to illegal imports. We need to quit trying to provide a LOCAL supply of all drugs, heavily regulate it, and allow ZERO IMPORTS and ZERO EXPORTS. Once we have driven out the illegal trade, then raise the taxes on these. I am not certain what tax on ethOH is, but back in the early 80's, at a lab that I worked

Seriously, we can not win the drug war. All this is doing around the world id funding these kinds of ppl. Taliban and AQ make loads of money from drugs. So do American gangs.

The only real solution is for America to legalize ALL drugs, and then allow NO IMPORTS OR EXPORTS of drugs. In addition, the production and sale of such is also heavily regulated. A whiff of a connection with ANY gang and you can not do anything. Get caught using illegal drugs? Not a problem. The state provides housing for 5 years. Get caught bringing in, or selling drugs? Again, not a problem 20 years.

That still sounds fucking illegal to me. FYI: It's now legal to brew your own beer and make your own wine (at least in Texas, you know, one of those Mexican border states...) Guess what? The "Microbrewery" industry took off -- Big watered-down (corn/cheap) beer companies are now emulating some of the more flavorful beers. Imports of foreign beers are on the rise as many people discover that variety is the spice of life instead of only drinking X brand.

When ethOH was legalized, it was heavily controlled at first. This was done to enable them to wipe out gangsters/mafia. Once they were gone, THEN they opened up production. Not until that point. We need to do the same thing with drugs. Legalize all, but only the feds provide (via heavily regulated private industry).

Look, can you show me a single case of where meth is useful to humanity? You will be HARD pressed to do so. Do you really want that being produced AND PUSHED on YOUR CHILDREN? I have a 4 and a

If any politician was serious about stopping this, the answer is real simple: take the monetary incentive for the existence of the cartels out of the equation by legalizing marijuana in the United States. Arguably, the cartels would collapse overnight. However by doing this, a politician risks career suicide because she or he will lose campaign dollars as a result of lost support from industries such as: defense, pharmaceutical, paper products, etc. It would take politicians with balls, not those seeking

This is what our tax money in the fucking drug war is doing? Awesome. That's just fucking awesome. Civil war in Mexico is such a fantastic fucking American dream.

The drug lords are scum, but there are better ways for dealing with them, such as using harm reduction [harmreduction.org] principles to lessen the demand for their products, and thus hurting their income.

There will always be people using drugs, whether they should or not. Decriminalizing their use does not imply an endorsement of the behavior. It's still valid t

You are missing the economic picture. Money from drugs make them powerful. Without drug funds they may try kidnapping or human trafficking but they will have a lot less money to work with. In the US after prohibition ended the power of the gangs dropped dramatically. They moved on to prostitution and gambling and eventually drugs but they lost alot of power.

I would get rid of all vice crimes. Gambling, prostitution, drugs, ect. The fact is markets exist in hese things between connecting adults. By making th